On Fri, 24 Aug 2007, Highland Ham wrote:

With commercially manufactured equipment now mandated here for foundation
licence applicants my greatest fear is that we will lose our greatest
priviledge of being able to design and build our own transmitting
equipment.
My first SSB transmitter was, of course, all valve. It started at 483Khz
with a phasing system followed by two half lattice crystal filter sections.
Output started as a 6146 and then grew to 4x811A's in parallel. One of the
real problems was getting the VFO really stable and the best I came up with
used the worm drive capacitor out of one of those TU6 tuning boxes with the
tuned circuits connected remotely via coax lines to the oscillator stage
which was on the main chassis.
All a long time ago but I still believe that such experiments were a good
way to learn and am also of the opinion that the newcomers who simply
purchase a commercial rig are missing out on a lot of the basic fun that we
had when a piece of junk disposals equipment could be transformed into
something useful.
=============================================
Firstly , Foundation Licensees in the UK are permitted to use
self-constructed transmitting equipment from an 'approved kit' , whatever
that 'approved' means.

The younger generation(s) are no longer interested in our hobby for all the
well known reasons, Internet- Mobile Phones - Sat TV - iPod etc.
Their first priority is 'socialising' and a 'nerd' sitting in a shack
soldering and using test equipment is NOT socialising.

Right. Today's business model is profits. You don't need brains,
knowleddge, or skill to _buy_ an already assembled gadget. Just money (or
debt).

Moreover ,homebrew equipment is NOT necessarily cheaper than off-the-shelf
stuff (with the exception of very basic equipment and peripherals).

Best to look at hamfests (don't know if you have these over where you
are), used equipment, and war surplus (we have a few left here in US).

Being involved in assisting people to get a Ham licence , most if not all
recruits are retired or are about to retire.
We now live in 2007 and beyond ............that's the reality .

Frightening, isn't it?

However ,being an old fogy myself .....I still do enjoy home-brewing.

So do I.


Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH north of Scotland

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007, Tim Shoppa wrote:

On Aug 23, 9:17 pm, Scott wrote:
Might not kill a tube, but it could kill a builder! Be careful!!

Oh, come on. How could anyone have not touched a low-kilovolt B+ and
call himself a ham?

Right on!!

We've all touched a kilovolt or two, probably as young kids, and we're
all perfectly normal!

Just don't let the current path include your heart/chest.

Tim.

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007, Scott wrote:

Well, all humor aside, I stand by my original answer to BE CAREFUL. True, a
KV might not kill you, but if you start out being careless, when you progress
up to tubes like a 4-1000A, the B+ will most certainly kill you. The pile of
ashes on the floor will be proof enough

Again, humor aside, I pride myself on NOT having hit a KV...that takes more
skill than hitting it

Knights of Olde Times had scars to prove their courage, bravery, and
skills and slain dragons. ;-) (or foolheartiness?)

Then thee can speak of "experience." ;-)

And, once burned, you learn and remember better, too!!! :-)

Memory is wonderful: You recognize when you made that same mistake before!

;-)

And, of course, you get bragging rights if you can talk about a smoke test
where you really did get the smoke (yeah, I had one and that burnt rubber
stank, too).

73

Art, W4PON

===== no change to below, included for reference and context =====
Scott
N0EDV

Tim Shoppa wrote:

On Aug 23, 9:17 pm, Scott wrote:

Might not kill a tube, but it could kill a builder! Be careful!!


Oh, come on. How could anyone have not touched a low-kilovolt B+ and
call himself a ham?

We've all touched a kilovolt or two, probably as young kids, and we're
all perfectly normal!

Tim.



--
Scott
http://corbenflyer.tripod.com/
Gotta Fly or Gonna Die
Building RV-4 (Super Slow Build Version)

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 23:51:36 -0400, Straydog wrote:



On Fri, 24 Aug 2007, George McLeod wrote:

It is great to know that I am not the last dinosaur left on the planet.

Jeeze, what is it, you and me against the world? ;-)

Oh, there's more of us :-)

At 39, I'm a dinosaur at heart with barely a transistor in stock. A couple
thousand tubes though!

Cheers,
__
Gregg

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 00:09:47 -0400, Straydog wrote:



On Fri, 24 Aug 2007, Scott wrote:

Well, all humor aside, I stand by my original answer to BE CAREFUL. True, a
KV might not kill you, but if you start out being careless, when you progress
up to tubes like a 4-1000A, the B+ will most certainly kill you. The pile of
ashes on the floor will be proof enough

Again, humor aside, I pride myself on NOT having hit a KV...that takes more
skill than hitting it

Knights of Olde Times had scars to prove their courage, bravery, and
skills and slain dragons. ;-) (or foolheartiness?)

Then thee can speak of "experience." ;-)

And, once burned, you learn and remember better, too!!! :-)

Memory is wonderful: You recognize when you made that same mistake before!

;-)

And, of course, you get bragging rights if you can talk about a smoke test
where you really did get the smoke (yeah, I had one and that burnt rubber
stank, too).

At least in Europe AC/DC radio and television receivers were common,
in which you could have the 220 V mains directly in the chassis. You
learned quite quicly to check the polarity of the mains plug before
starting serving such equipment.

There was a golden rule of always keeping your left hand in your
pocket while working with your right hand inside a mains powered or
high voltage device. An AC/DC powered device could deliver quite a lot
current through the mains fuse and rectifier. If you touched some high
voltage part (possibly causing a cramp in your hand), the current
would not go through your hart and you would have the other hand
operational to pull the plug.
---
When testing a new power supply, I was sniffing around to detect any
overheating components, my nouse touched the mains transformer primary
and got an electric shock in my nouse. I did not notice anything
special after that, but driving a car immediately after that proved to
be difficult, since I really had to concentrate to stay in the lane.

So if you get an electric shock in the head, nouse or ears, please
avoid driving a car for a few hours, at least for the safety of others
using the road :-).

Paul OH3LWR

There was a golden rule of always keeping your left hand in your
pocket while working with your right hand inside a mains powered or
high voltage device. An AC/DC powered device could deliver quite a lot
current through the mains fuse and rectifier. If you touched some high
voltage part (possibly causing a cramp in your hand), the current
would not go through your hart and you would have the other hand
operational to pull the plug.
==============================
Being left handed I now realise that I must be very happy to be alive


Frank GM0CSZ

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007, geek wrote:

On Fri, 24 Aug 2007 23:51:36 -0400, Straydog wrote:



On Fri, 24 Aug 2007, George McLeod wrote:

It is great to know that I am not the last dinosaur left on the planet.

Jeeze, what is it, you and me against the world? ;-)

Oh, there's more of us :-)

At 39, I'm a dinosaur at heart with barely a transistor in stock. A couple
thousand tubes though!

Three of us? Could we form a club? "The dinosaur club"? ;-)

I'm kinda half serious, though. I go through QST and they have this "Old
Radio" department now. But its also almost all old _commercial_ gear.

I'm looking for those guys who built all those rigs that appeared in QSTs,
CQs, etc. If they are still alive.

I've got probably 100+ myself. Constantly looking at my tube manual and
dreaming about the next project(s), whether I should use some tube or a
different one, or maybe even something else.

I started out with mostly 7 pin and 9 pin miniatures, but now I'm pushing
myself towards octals just for the ease of handling. The "key" means its
very easy to get into the socket (get key in hole, rotate and
...click..push in). Besides, the socket pins are bigger, easier to solder.
And, since the heat is spread out more, the tube runs cooler so you don't
burn yourself when you go to pull out a hot tube to check another of the
same kind. Takes up more volume, but, what the hey, I build this stuff
spread out for ease of repair, ease of construction, modification.

Cheers,
__
Gregg

Good comments, Paul. I'll keep the extended story in mind.

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007, Paul Keinanen wrote:

On Sat, 25 Aug 2007 00:09:47 -0400, Straydog wrote:



On Fri, 24 Aug 2007, Scott wrote:

Well, all humor aside, I stand by my original answer to BE CAREFUL. True, a
KV might not kill you, but if you start out being careless, when you progress
up to tubes like a 4-1000A, the B+ will most certainly kill you. The pile of
ashes on the floor will be proof enough

Again, humor aside, I pride myself on NOT having hit a KV...that takes more
skill than hitting it

Knights of Olde Times had scars to prove their courage, bravery, and
skills and slain dragons. ;-) (or foolheartiness?)

Then thee can speak of "experience." ;-)

And, once burned, you learn and remember better, too!!! :-)

Memory is wonderful: You recognize when you made that same mistake before!

;-)

And, of course, you get bragging rights if you can talk about a smoke test
where you really did get the smoke (yeah, I had one and that burnt rubber
stank, too).

At least in Europe AC/DC radio and television receivers were common,
in which you could have the 220 V mains directly in the chassis. You
learned quite quicly to check the polarity of the mains plug before
starting serving such equipment.

There was a golden rule of always keeping your left hand in your
pocket while working with your right hand inside a mains powered or
high voltage device. An AC/DC powered device could deliver quite a lot
current through the mains fuse and rectifier. If you touched some high
voltage part (possibly causing a cramp in your hand), the current
would not go through your hart and you would have the other hand
operational to pull the plug.
---
When testing a new power supply, I was sniffing around to detect any
overheating components, my nouse touched the mains transformer primary
and got an electric shock in my nouse. I did not notice anything
special after that, but driving a car immediately after that proved to
be difficult, since I really had to concentrate to stay in the lane.

So if you get an electric shock in the head, nouse or ears, please
avoid driving a car for a few hours, at least for the safety of others
using the road :-).

Paul OH3LWR

snip

Oh, there's more of us :-)

At 39, I'm a dinosaur at heart with barely a transistor in stock. A couple
thousand tubes though!

Three of us? Could we form a club? "The dinosaur club"? ;-)

Behold - http://geek.scorpiorising.ca/GeeK_ZonE

Some of the tube lovers are even mid-teenagers :-)

Cheers,
__
Gregg

On Sun, 26 Aug 2007, geek wrote:

snip

Oh, there's more of us :-)

At 39, I'm a dinosaur at heart with barely a transistor in stock. A couple
thousand tubes though!

Three of us? Could we form a club? "The dinosaur club"? ;-)

Behold - http://geek.scorpiorising.ca/GeeK_ZonE

How about that... I had a quick look, and cracked up over that one abut
getting 500 watts out of a 6L6. Didn't read deeply, but saw a few links
I'll have a read later.

Thanks.

Some of the tube lovers are even mid-teenagers :-)

There ae also guys out there that, for wacko (?) reasons, like to restore
old cars (eg. Model T fords) and drive them around, too. ;-)

Cheers,
__
Gregg